Surveillance

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

The specific purposes of the population-based surveillance component of the Missouri Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Rural Awareness and Prevention Project (MOFASRAPP) are to:

• Use a medical chart abstraction surveillance methodology to enable Missouri to determine the prevalence of FAS within the geographically-defined project area of 71 counties;
• Improve the capacity to ascertain true cases of FAS and generate population-based surveillance data;
• Gather information from facilities or programs where FAS is likely to be diagnosed or children with FAS receive services, such as the Central Missouri FAS Center, high-risk newborn registry, birth defects registry, birth certificates, special health care needs registry, and other programs or settings for children with developmental disabilities; and

Evaluate the completeness of the surveillance system methodology, the system's ability to generate a prevalence rate for FAS, and the potential for monitoring trends.